Counseling Theories – Core Vocabulary

This set of vocabulary flashcards distills essential theories, concepts, and techniques from the counseling-theory comparison chart, offering concise definitions to aid exam preparation.

Psychoanalytic Therapy

An insight-oriented approach that seeks to uncover unconscious motives and childhood conflicts driving current behavior.

Id

The instinctual, pleasure-seeking part of personality operating on the pleasure principle in psychoanalytic theory.

Ego

The rational mediator between id impulses and reality, operating on the reality principle.

Superego

The internalized moral conscience that judges thoughts and behaviors according to societal standards.

Defense Mechanisms

Unconscious strategies (e.g., repression, projection) the ego uses to reduce anxiety from forbidden impulses.

Transference

Client’s unconscious redirection of feelings for significant others onto the therapist.

Countertransference

Therapist’s emotional reactions toward the client, often rooted in the therapist’s own past.

Psychosexual Stages

Freud’s developmental phases (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) in which conflicts shape personality.

Free Association

Psychoanalytic technique where clients verbalize thoughts without censorship to access the unconscious.

Dream Analysis

Interpreting manifest and latent dream content to reveal unconscious wishes and conflicts.

Adlerian Therapy

A socially oriented approach emphasizing purpose, community feeling, and overcoming inferiority.

Social Interest

Adler’s notion of an innate desire to connect and contribute to the welfare of others.

Striving for Superiority

Adlerian concept of the drive to overcome perceived limitations and achieve mastery.

Inferiority Complex

Feelings of inadequacy that arise from childhood experiences and shape maladaptive behavior.

Lifestyle (Adlerian)

An individual’s unique way of pursuing goals and dealing with life tasks, formed early in life.

Birth Order

Adler’s idea that sibling position influences personality development and social roles.

Early Recollections

Brief childhood memories examined to reveal current beliefs and life themes in Adlerian work.

Person-Centered Therapy

Rogers’s nondirective approach that facilitates growth through a therapeutic climate of acceptance.

Unconditional Positive Regard

Nonjudgmental acceptance and support offered by the therapist regardless of client behavior.

Congruence (Person-Centered)

Therapist’s genuineness and transparency in the therapeutic relationship.

Empathy

Accurate, compassionate understanding of the client’s internal frame of reference.

Self-Concept

The organized set of perceptions an individual holds about themselves.

Existential Anxiety

Deep concern arising from issues like freedom, isolation, meaninglessness, and mortality.

Logotherapy

Frankl’s technique of helping clients find meaning in suffering and life circumstances.

Paradoxical Intention

Encouraging clients to embrace or exaggerate a feared behavior to reduce anxiety about it.

Here-and-Now Awareness

Gestalt focus on immediate experience rather than past or future events.

Unfinished Business

Lingering emotions or conflicts from the past that impair present awareness.

Empty Chair Technique

Gestalt exercise where clients dialogue with an imagined other to resolve unfinished business.

Systematic Desensitization

Behavioral procedure pairing relaxation with gradual exposure to feared stimuli to reduce anxiety.

Operant Conditioning

Learning process in which behavior is shaped by consequences such as reinforcement or punishment.

Automatic Thoughts

Quick, habitual cognitions that influence emotions and behaviors in CBT.

Cognitive Distortions

Inaccurate thought patterns (e.g., catastrophizing) that maintain emotional problems.

Cognitive Restructuring

CBT technique of identifying and replacing distorted thoughts with balanced alternatives.

WDEP System

Reality-therapy procedure exploring Wants, Doing, self-Evaluation, and Planning for change.

Quality World

In Choice Theory, a mental picture album of ideal people, things, and beliefs that satisfy needs.

Empowerment (Feminist)

Process of helping clients gain agency and challenge oppressive social structures.

Gender Role Analysis

Technique examining how societal gender expectations affect a client’s functioning.

Miracle Question

SFBT prompt asking clients to envision life if the problem disappeared overnight.

Scaling Questions

SFBT tool using 0–10 scales to measure progress, motivation, or severity.

Externalizing the Problem

Narrative practice of separating the issue from the person to reduce self-blame.

Reauthoring

Narrative process of creating alternative, preferred stories about one’s life.

Differentiation of Self

Family-systems concept describing the ability to maintain autonomy while remaining emotionally connected.

Triangulation

Family pattern in which two members draw in a third to reduce tension in their relationship.

Genogram

Graphic family map charting relationships and patterns across generations.

Multigenerational Transmission

Bowenian idea that relational patterns and anxieties are passed down through generations.

Exception-Finding

SFBT strategy of identifying times when the problem was absent or less severe to build solutions.